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After 2+ months living on the road for photography, I have some thoughts.
00:00 Intro from Sandane
02:35 Health
04:29 Rest
05:15 Stuck inside all day
05:55 Getting work done
06:54 Sharing work online
08:02 Running errands
08:33 Where to stay
09:25 No friction
11:37 Always outside
14:20 No fixed location
16:32 Fewer distractions
18:30 Cost
19:34 Final thoughts
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27 Comments
Hey Adrian, I discovered your channel during your trip and love all the videos you made on the road (and before).
I spend 2.5 months in a car in New Zealand and the biggest pros for me were the flexibility, the price and the way you connect to the nature and the surroundings you live in because you spend so much time outside but you also become so dependent on the nature. The biggest downsides for me were the bad weather days (4 days of pouring rain and storm drives you crazy) and the loneliness. I guess that doing vlogs/a blog and editing your photos helps a lot with the later as it gives you a purpose and something to focus on, not letting your thoughts go off the rails
Thanks
Hey Adrian am jealous of your trip as l often put my car on the ferry and head to my favourite location Tasmania and l book a return ticket for a fortnight away but after less than a week l am done with living in the car and get a fixed location with all the upsides and downsides you mention. Enjoy your travels as trust me when your body no longer allows it you miss it.😊
I live in New Zealand and travel with a self contained camper van. It is an awesome way to travel to isolated locations. If I was visiting another country the car option would be much cheaper but no room for my wife! Choices…
Thank you for the frank and honest assessment of the pros and cons of such a trip. I'd like to suggest one more advantage of your car trip: you will have such unique memories to cherish for having decided to take a more challenging path. This was not just a photographic vacation; it was an adventure. Well done, sir. And again, thanks for going through all the effort to share this experience with us.
Thanks!
I think Nigel Danson got the perfect car for living on the road! Anyway he just uses it for driving around in England for a few days by a time, but he seems to really enjoy it. I feel more like a family taxi driver, today I must drive my daughter to Gjøvik to the dentist, in the weekends I drive my wife to her job as there are no buses, I drive them to their activities, to meet friends, to do shopping. And I make most of my images driving them around! The problem is of course that I'm stuck here at this small spot, caught between Lake Mjøsa, the Totenåsen Hills and the rural landscapes of the lowlands. And that my girls only give me a 2-3 minutes patient span when I stop the car for an image. Besides, one of my best friends is from Sandane, but he lives here now.
Too a pity the wind power mafia want to destroy our country, so join Headwind Norway or Motvind Norge everyone!
Ah, I must mention, there are hundreds of lakes up in the Totenåsen Hills, and I've still only visited a fraction of them.
Thanks a lot for your thought’s. But I understand that many things have been easier if you do the same thing in summertime….Take care. Göran from Latvia.
I did a week of roadside photography in Scotland in September – although I didn't camp in the car, just being out each day on location makes all the difference with the changing weather and light.
I drove a Big Truck for a number of years and it seems living in the car to do photography is a lot like that. Is it worth it? I guess that depends on what your ultimate goal is.
I love following you on your adventures. Keep up the great work!
I suppose a camper van with starlink would be the solution.
Another thing is this is only possible in the North 3 or 4 months of the year with no heater. Of course we go camping even in the coldest of winter, but not with camera gear for long periods, and besides a car is damp.
Thank you ! It seems that you ship your book only to the US ?
Hey Adrian, maybe your next long trip, use a (little)mobile home?
Not in a car, but I spent 7 months on the road & hiking accross the US. It was both terrible and amazing. I had just a little panasonic compact camera, that I bought, and I used the hell out of it. For sure though I saved all the editing for after the trip was done.
It's not an expensive lifestyle by any means, especially if you stealth camp nearly every night; so instead of beds and accomodations my largest expense was food and groceries. My advice to traveling photographers, is always remember to take photos of the people you meet along the way; even if you're a landscape photographer; even if they're quick unprofessional snapshots; those will be the best memories you will make.
Always nice to follow you through your amazing journey. Beautiful and generous places ! Cheers !
I think that living in a car is OK as an adventure. But it doesn't seem to be sustainable on the long term. Also, I think that photography takes more than finding places by chance. It encompasses creativity, well defined projects, astethics, printing, planning books and other media, exposing your work in galleries etc. Being on the road all the time doesn't necessarily helps with these other aspects. But, as a youtuber, producing adventure videos on the road may be a possibility, but that's more vlogging than photography…
Hey, are you going home through Denmark? I just studied the Danish Knife Act, they are insane there! They have huge laws with many paragraphs about when you can carry a knife, what kind of knife you can carry on different places etc. I think they have a whole law book about the carrying of knives. It's all completely insane!
Great video Adrian! I do sleep in my car pretty often for photography, but I was never able to do that for more than 8-10 days in a row. The great thing here in Japan is that there are convenience stores and onsen (hot spa) pretty much anywhere in the countryside, so getting clean or fed is never an issue.
supongo que la iglesia a la que te referias es sobre la que hablamos la otra vez, la stavkirke "hopperstad", si no pudiste en este viaje espero pueda ser para la proxima, buen viaje de regreso y aca tienes un seguidor para lo que necesites para tu proximo viaje a Noruega.
I do short trips since the Cascades are my backyard. Shooting king tides in the middle of Winter meant it was dark at 4pm and I had many hours to go before bedtime, plus it was raining so those times I listen to podcasts and watch movies. I love it in the Summer when we have daylight until 10pm (22:00) I like to park up for the night in the mountains. Sometimes that means crazy weather, but it makes for good memories. Lightning, fog, hail, rain, flooding, wild fire smoke, the only thing I don't mess with is wind in the woods. Wind on the coast is OK. I enjoy getting into my head and just seeing what nature has to give me. It's hard for me to feel connected and in flow with people around. Getting a little bored aids creativity but there has to be a balance, so that's why I enjoy shorter trips.
I ordered the Canon SELPHY CP1300 Compact Photo Printer today, and I even found a pink version! My girls gonna love it🙂
Loved this honest review and covering all aspects of your trip. And just ordered your book! 🙂
Thank you for the video.
This was a pretty heroic journey to be doing for your photography, Adrián. The results are awesome but I’m glad you are now staying at airbnbs. I have thought about renting a camper van and trying that out, and I might still do that. What keeps me wondering is the safety issue, as a woman (even one who is not very fearful in general) I have to think whether an experience like yours would make me easy prey to being bothered at night or just hassled. Don’t know!